Portrait of a Man 1925

This is Paul Klee’s *Portrait of a Man*, made in oil paint, though the date is unknown. Klee’s known for his playful dreamscapes, but this portrait is really all about the brushstrokes. See how the paint is applied in these short, choppy dabs? It’s almost sculptural, a real record of the artist’s hand moving across the canvas. The palette here is also quite earthy – browns, grays, blacks – but there’s this real energy in the way Klee has dabbed it all on, it gives the piece a strange sense of depth and movement. Take the way he’s built up the collar with these thick white strokes; it's such a simple gesture, but it really makes the whole painting sing! There’s something almost Fauvist here in the way Klee’s using colour and texture to create an emotional space, rather than just a representation of a man. He reminds me of someone like Vlaminck, but maybe a little more subtle, a little more… Swiss.